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New extra-inning format stirs debate as teams plot strategy

MILWAUKEE — Baseball has its answer to penalty kicks, overtimes and shootouts, and it figures to stir just as much debate as all those other forms of tiebreakers.

Major League Baseball will start each extra inning in this abbreviated, 60-game season by putting a runner on second base. The rule has been used since 2018 in the minor leagues, where it created more action and settled games sooner.

"It's like 'arena baseball,'" said Scott Thorman, who managed the Kansas City Royals' Single-A Carolina League affiliate in Wilmington, Delaware, last season.

Those words may cause traditionalists to shudder.